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Ontario’s schools should keep standardized tests

From the very start of standardized testing in Ontario schools two decades ago, teachers have strongly opposed the whole idea.

The tests show how students are doing in math (not great), and reading and writing (better) at a few key points in their schooling. They provide valuable feedback for parents, schools and the education system as a whole, identifying where improvements need to be made.

Education Minister Indira Naidoo-Harris at an elementary school in downtown Toronto. (Kristin Rushowy)

But to teachers’ unions, the tests aren’t about measuring and monitoring student achievement at all. They’re a challenge to the professional judgement of teachers, and the results act as an indirect test on them.

It’s no surprise, then, that Ontario’s biggest elementary and secondary school unions welcomed a report released last week that calls for an end to the Grade 3 and 9 tests and an overhaul of tests done in Grades 6 and 10.

The only thing the unions would be happier with is an end to the province’s Education Quality and Accountability Office (EQAO) and all its testing.

The EQAO tests are how we know that math is a perennial problem in our elementary schools. That has already led to changes, including at least 60 minutes of math a day, a lead teacher in every school who is deeply knowledgeable about teaching math, and more math training for all teachers so they are comfortable with the subject and don’t inadvertently transfer “math phobia” to students.

And if the math scores don’t go up, more changes will have to be made to ensure students are learning the skills they need.

Without the tests, how will we ever know?

Scrapping the Grade 3 test is a particularly terrible idea. The province has invested heavily in full-day kindergarten to set kids up for success in school and life and that test is an important checkpoint to measure the impact of early learning.

There is room, however, to modernize the tests and the way they are delivered. EQAO itself has said as much.

Last week’s report, Ontario: A Learning Province, is part of the Liberal government’s multi-year plan “to give students and parents better information about a child’s progress and modernize our curriculum and assessment tools.”

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Getting rid of standardized testing doesn’t move those goalposts forward one bit. Education Minister Indira Naidoo-Harris should have said that clearly when she received the report.

So why, then, didn’t she?

The minister welcomed the less controversial parts of the report and called for more consultations in the fall on the recommendations to scale back EQAO testing. It’s hard not to see this as an attempt to have it both ways with a provincial election looming.

By keeping the testing, the government is appealing to parents who like the rare and clear look they provide into student and school performance. But by leaving the door open to implementing the report’s EQAO recommendations later, it’s appeasing teachers’ unions, whose support the Liberals want in the June election.

The New Democrats have said they would scrap testing if they are elected, while the Progressive Conservatives have suggested they would improve it.

Opponents of EQAO have argued that teachers, not standardized testing, are the best way to assess student achievement. But that’s already the bulk of what happens in the classroom. Teachers assess, test and grade their students all year long. It’s not an either/or. There’s room for both in our education system.

The bigger concern is that teachers say they feel pressure to increase scores on tests by “teaching to the test,” which skews the classroom focus and creates stress for students.

If those are problems, then that’s what needs fixing.

EQAO was conceived of by Bob Rae’s NDP government, created under Mike Harris’ Conservatives, and continued under the Liberal governments of Dalton McGuinty and Kathleen Wynne.

All those governments, which didn’t agree on much else, saw value in standardized testing. There’s no reason to abandon it now.

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